Menu

We’ve all been told that if you want to be a writer, you need to write a lot, and read a lot. But what should you read? And what should you write about? Certainly a few guidelines could help.

I’m typing this as summer has come to Wisconsin. The season is robust; made of mist and mud. There are long, hot days stretching between vacations on the calendar, lacking structure. It’s structure I crave. Books for pleasure, sure, but also substance. I want to read books recommended by authors who have written the types of books I’d place in the “read a lot” category. And so, with a little help from my friends: here is a worthwhile list.

“One hundred percent require all my students to read Toni Morrison’s Beloved for sentence craft + genre-bending. Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love for weirdness + character arcs, any of Neil Gaiman’s works to show how simplicity can work well, and Anna-Marie McLemore’s books for basically an MFA in 400 pages on how to just write effing pretty books.

Also short stories that I’ve loved: Raymond Carver’s Cathedrals, any by Karen Russell,Kelly Link, or Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings.”

“Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill for economy of language/form. Anything by Tobias Wolff for dialogue.” (This choice was seconded by the lovely Marisa Reichardt, who wrote Underwater, the book that made me, Melissa, cry twice on a plane.)

Posts navigation

About the Author

Melissa Gorzelanczyk writes award-winning adult fiction in search of life’s beauty, enigma and truth. She is pursuing an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her first novel, Arrows, was published by Penguin Random House. She works as a communications specialist at O’Connor Connective and lives with her husband near a family of owls in Green Bay, Wisconsin.